Snow in the Forecast and Pretty Nice Spring Conditions for St. Patrick’s Day Weekend!

There is a mixed bag of tricks weather-wise. Rain fell over the last 24 hours and that has cause one ski area to close up shop for the season. Snow and freezing rain are also already falling across other areas and up to 3-4” of snow is in the forecast for this St. Patrick’s Day weekend and conditions should be pretty decent no matter where you choose to ski or ride.

Several ski areas are ending their seasons this Sunday, so get out and ski! Bryce, Massanutten, and The Homestead are those who have previously announced Sunday as a season ending date.

Weather permitting, all other ski areas plan to remain open to March 25th, April 1st or longer. Check the SLOPE CONDITIONS page for the details.

THERE’S PLENTY OF SNOW! REALLY!

There are times during each season that we find ourselves having to report conditions that sound conflicting as heck and then attempt to sell the idea that there’s plenty of snow for you guys to have a ton of fun on. This is one of those times. On one side we report that due to warm, heavy rain – Ski Beech is closed for the season. On the other hand we have to promote the FACT that there IS plenty of snow at the rest of the region’s ski areas. If we didn’t clarify things then we’d get a bunch of emails from people wanting to know WHY.

The only thing we can do is report and as one popular news agency says, “you decide”.

Despite the same warm, heavy rain there IS still plenty of snow at Appalachian, Cataloochee and Sugar Mountain in North Carolina and even more snow and somewhat better conditions the further North you go. The difference is the fact that the other mountains simply have more base. Beech was already looking p-r-e-t-t-y thin before the rain ever hit. (See archived article including photo on Wednesday.) We speculated on Wednesday that Beech might end their season at any moment as much from the fact that there just wasn’t any traffic to speak of – as anything else. They are now closed so if you had reservations KEEP THEM and simply head over to Sugar or App and ski what will no doubt be plenty of good, Spring Conditions.

Mike is the Editor and founder of SkiSoutheast.com, SkiNC.com and ResortCams.com. Since September 1996 he has posted close to 14,000 posts, articles, photos and videos promoting all of the ski areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.Mike is the father of four daughters, is an avid skier and enjoys golf, tennis, kayaking and hiking in the mountains. Winter snowsports and Summer boating on Watauga Lake are among his favorite pastimes.

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